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Cape Town – South African talk show host Anele Mdoda interviewed the fifth first lady of South Africa Thobeka Madiba-Zuma on Monday, 14 August. The interview took place, live on air, on SABC 3's Real Talk with Anele.

Mrs Madiba-Zuma spoke about how she met now president Jacob Zuma in 1993 when she worked as a banker and he was her client. She then went on to describe how he used to call her mother’s landline and leave her messages when she wasn’t there.

Here’s what Thobeka told Anele about that courtship memory:

"At the time I was working and studying at the same time. I would work during the day and attend lectures (at night) and (because of that) I would be home very late in the evening…I would come home and my mother would say: 'There’s a Jacob Zuma who called.' With a straight face, expressionless and I would hold my breath. Ok, let her not ask me ‘who was Jacob Zuma?’, because there’s only one, who was called a terrorist (at the time)."

When Anele asked how long that carried on the first lady said: "It carried on until I said ‘I think you need to try and call when I’m home.’ So he had to find out what time I would be home and he would call then."

Thobeka and Jacob Zuma dated and were then engaged and eventually married in 2010.